Donald Trump tried this before, with his pathetic little “blog” that closed up shop in short order. Now he’s trying again, with what he calls his new social media company.
Donald Trump has announced plans to launch a social media platform called TRUTH Social that will rolled be out early next year.
The former president, who was banned from Facebook and Twitter earlier this year, says his goal is to rival the tech companies that have denied him the megaphone that was paramount to his rise.
Like his previous effort, though, he’s just half-assing it, taking existing frameworks and making the minimal effort to slap a few cosmetic changes on it. This TRUTH social thing seems to be nothing but a Mastodon instance with his name on it, and there is zero thought put into security and checking accounts on the back end. People have already cracked it and found the registration page, despite the fact it isn’t opened yet, and created joke accounts on it. I saw that someone managed to put a photo of a pig pooping on its testicles prominently displayed (I’ll spare you all), as well as registering under various obvious pseudonyms.
Was just able to setup an account using the handle @donaldtrump on 'Truth Social,' former President Donald Trump's new social media website.
Although the site is not officially open, a URL was discovered allowing users to sign up anyway. pic.twitter.com/MRMQzjNhma
— Mikael Thalen (@MikaelThalen) October 21, 2021
This thing is going to flop and fail hard. Once word gets out to the gullible millions that it’s really just an unintentional honey trap — sign up to praise Lord Trump, and someone is going to slurp up your registration info to laugh at you, or worse — I don’t think it can thrive. Hey, did you hear that hackers stole the Oath Keepers registration list and have exposed 35,000 members identities, including a swarm of Republican politicians? TRUTH Social is going to be so fragile and porous, with tissue-paper thin defenses, the hackers are just going to drool in its general direction and rip on through.
But that doesn’t matter. This is an ego-trip for the ex-president. Or is it something more? Like maybe another grift?
Former president Donald Trump’s media venture, Truth Social, could give his new company access to $300 million.
However, some of the investors who funded the venture weren’t aware that Trump would be involved, according to a report from the New York Times.
“The details of Mr. Trump’s latest partnership were vague,” the Times reports. “The statement he issued was reminiscent of the kind of claims he made about his business dealings in New York as a real estate developer. It was replete with high-dollar amounts and superlatives that could not be verified.”
He knows who his real marks are: stupid rich investment bankers who don’t even bother to look to see who they’re giving hundreds of millions of dollars to. And who needs that much money to set up a Mastodon instance?
After this one goes belly up, look for the Donald to beg for half a billion dollars to set up a Discord server. And for his clientele to pay for it.
Tabby Lavalamp says
I’m curious to see how bad his streaming service of “non-woke” shows is going to be. There’s only so much you can do with Kevin Sorbo, Kristy Swanson, and Chachi.
Tethys says
I prefer the pig to the steaming pile that constitutes the Donald. They are generally very clean, intelligent animals though their excrement is incredibly foul smelling.
timgueguen says
Trump is also talking about starting a streaming platform that doesn’t have all that “woke” stuff places like Netflix do. One of the promo images shows Trump giving a sumo wrester, or at least someone dressed as one, a trophy. Sumo, that sport well known for its white, Christian champions.
https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/1451004127656517637
jimf says
“Truth Social”? In other words “Pravda USA”?
JM says
At this point anybody who gets into a deal with Trump with vague terms deserves to lose their money. This isn’t throwing a little money at an unknown small operation that seems to have an interesting new idea. This is a guy with a long history of setting up shady projects to channel money to himself asking for lots of money to invest in a saturated field well known for the number of start ups that fail.
submoron says
I thought that it would be Arsebook.
gijoel says
I remember him suing Twitter to reinstate his account as it would cause harm to his followers if they didn’t.
rsmith says
If 2016-2020 has shown one thing, it is that it’s obvious that mr. Trump has problems with truth. Hiring competent people is also not his strong point.
If you have an IT company or are an independant IT contractor, would having mr. Trump on your client list be an asset? Given his propensity not to pay bills in full and to sue people, any sort of risk assessment would most likely result in a “no”.
robro says
Trevor Noah of the Daily Show posted a tweet from Steven Monacelli on FB post that says “It took less than two hours for Donald Trump’s new social media to collapse under the weight of embarrassment.” We can dream.
As for rich people throwing money away on Dumpsterfire’s schemes, keep in mind that these are probably tax write-offs. They love them tax write-offs.
rsmith says
robro@9
But if you give Trump some money once, won’t he be back needling you for more?
MetzO'Magic says
This is just the latest way for The Donald to grift:
Trump’s new ‘social media platform’ isn’t a Twitter rival. It’s an investment scam (dailykos.com)
A new way for the Russian oligarchs to launder their money through Spraytan Sphincterlips, rather than having to go to the bother of buying over-priced apartments in his buildings.
“Hey, look at all the money pouring into TMTG! It must be a great investment.” Meanwhile, half of it goes straight back to the same oligarchs, laundered and neatly pressed, thank you.
robro says
rsmith @ #10 — “…won’t he be back needling you for more?” Of course he will. That’s why he loves politics, and religion. I suspect Trump discovered the donation scam some years ago and his con artist eyes lit up. All he has to do is take some outrageous line that appeals to a certain demographic (say middle aged and older white working class men and women, religious zealots, etc.), put it out there in the ozone, say please send money for the cause, and wait for the money to come rolling in. And people do to the tune of 10s of millions of dollars. But he also gets big multi-million dollars donors who are buying “access”. It’s a gold mine to him and his family.
robro says
MetzO’Magic @ #11 — “A new way for the Russian oligarchs to launder their money”…well, Russian, Saudi, American, British, Chinese, et alii. There are a lot of oligarchs all over the world. They’ve got a lot of dirty money to launder. They aren’t at all concerned about national interests except as a way to arouse the hoi polloi to distract them from what’s really going on.
lumipuna says
I just saw the same comparison in a Finnish news analysis that treated this whole scam/project with vastly unwarranted seriousness.
Ray Ceeya says
Now we have a place to upload all that gay furry porn we’ve been accumulating for the last few decades.
rsmith says
robro@12
But not on his own infrastructure; he’s obviously too cheap for that. :-)
rsmith says
Ray Ceeya@15
Wonder how long it takes before someone defaces the front page with some old but suitable internet meme. :-)
rsmith says
Also, check out Beau of the Fifth Column’s video about it.
He seems to be really enjoying himself. :-)
bcw bcw says
Trumps venture consisted of buying a dead company and raising money under rules such that he gets to keep a couple of hundred million as a fee regardless of whether the company ever does anything.
Meanwhile, some other NSFW new user id’s on Trumps channel:
https://twitter.com/Tengrain/status/1450986397796429826
festersixohsixonethree says
I wonder who he suckered into paying for this…
Just another $$$$ scam I’ll bet.
oberon says
Seems likely that his site stole the code, in breach of the license conditions…
https://gizmodo.com/trump-may-already-face-legal-issues-for-new-social-medi-1847909587
Not like it wouldn’t have been easy enough to comply…it is free to use and modify, so long as it is attributed correctly…but Trump’s platform lists the code as proprietary…
Pad Gallagher says
Even better, he appears to have boosted his twitter clone by forking Mastodon’s source code. And is in violation of the applicable software license.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/22/22740354/trump-truth-social-network-spac-mastodon-license-software-freedom-conservancy